The American destroyer escort USS Donnell was torpedoed and heavily damaged in the Atlantic Ocean by German submarine U-473. Donnell was towed to Scotland and declared a total loss.
German submarine U-852 was beached and scuttled on the Somali coast after being heavily damaged by British aircraft.
After almost two years of internment in the Aga Khan's palace in Pune, Mahatma Gandhi was released for medical reasons. It would prove to be the last internment of Gandhi's life.[1]
Soviet forces began their final attack on Sevastopol with a massive artillery bombardment.[5]
The Biltmore Conference opened at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, with 600 delegates and Zionist leaders attending to discuss an official Zionist policy on the Jews and Palestine.
British authorities announced that Mahatma Gandhi had been unconditionally released from custody on medical grounds after being interned at Aga Khan III's palace at Pune since August 1942.[5]
The Japanese Mitsubishi A7M fighter plane had its first flight, but only nine would ever be manufactured.
The U.S. Eighth Air Force conducted a massive 1,500 bomber raid on Berlin.[7]
The Canadian frigate Valleyfield was torpedoed and sunk southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland by German submarine U-548 with the loss of 129 of 167 crew.
Soviet General Aleksandr Vasilevsky was wounded in the head at Sevastopol after his car drove over a mine. He was evacuated to Moscow for treatment.[10]
U.S. and British forces carried out Operation Diadem in Italy, breaking through German defenses in the Liri Valley.
Allied forces raided airfields and coastal installations in Normandy, hitting Calais particularly hard as part of the deception plan to make the Germans think the landings would be made there.[11]
19-year old Indian SepoyKamal Ram earned the Victoria Cross for his actions during his battalion's assault on the Gustav Line in Italy. Ram wiped out a German machine-gun post single-handedly, induced a second one to surrender and then assisted a companion in destroying a third.[12]
Action of 13 May 1944: A U.S. destroyer escort sank the former German U-boat U-1224, which had been given to the Japanese Navy and renamed RO-501. It was the first of two times a Japanese ship was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean during the war.
The Germans completed their withdrawal from the Crimea, having evacuated more than 150,000 men by air and sea over several weeks.[11]
Near Cassino, Italy, British Captain Richard Wakeford killed a number of the enemy and took 20 prisoners while armed with only a revolver. The following day he organized and led a force to attack a hill despite taking wounds to his face, arms and legs. Wakeford would be awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions.[13]
Vichy radio reported that French cardinals had appealed to the Roman Catholic clergy in Britain and the United States to use their influence to ensure that the French civilian population as well as towns, works of art and churches would be spared from Allied bombing as much as possible.[15]
The first of three days of British Commando reconnaissance raids known as Operation Tarbrush began in northern France.
Hungarian officials under the guidance of SS officials began deporting Jews from Hungary. By July 9 a total of about 440,000 Jews would be deported from the country, mostly to Auschwitz.[16]
In Algiers, French Vice-Admiral Edmond Derrien was sentenced to life in prison for handing over units of the French Fleet to the Germans in December 1942, after the Allied landing in North Africa.[17]
German submarine U-731 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied planes and warships.
Died:Fraser Barron, 23, New Zealand aviator (plane crash at Le Mans, France); Vincent Rose, 63, Italian-born American violinist, composer and bandleader
This week's issue of Life magazine published a photo of a young American woman with a Japanese skull sent to her by her boyfriend in the U.S. Navy.[20] Letters sent to the magazine widely condemned the publishing of the photo, and the Army directed its bureau of Public Relations to inform U.S. publishers that "the publication of such stories would be likely to encourage the enemy to take reprisals against American dead and prisoners of war."[21]
German submarine U-476 was depth charged and damaged off Trondheim by a PBY Catalina of No. 210 Squadron RAF. She was scuttled the next day by U-990, which rescued the survivors.
Died:Inigo Campioni, 65, Italian naval officer (executed by firing squad for refusing to collaborate with the Italian Social Republic); Matsuji Ijuin, 51, Japanese naval officer (killed when his flagship, the patrol boat Iki, was torpedoed and sunk north of Saipan); Luigi Mascherpa, 51, Italian admiral (executed for refusing to collaborate with the Italian Social Republic); Harold Bell Wright, 72, American writer